Gabriel swallowed, fighting a desperate urge to take her right there, rocking in the fog.
He told himself this was just the ache of a man who had gone too long without the comfort of a woman’s body.
But he knew it was something far deeper.
“I’ll tend to the oars,” he said, his voice harsher than he intended.
The slap of the water was the only sound as they drifted through mist and darkness, following the bends of the river. Eventually, Gabriel knew, it would lead them toward the abbey.
When his shoulders finally began to ache with strain, he pulled beneath an overhanging tree. Beyond was an old mill that looked long deserted. “We’ll rest here and push on later.”
Geneva gathered her sodden skirts and stepped onto the muddy bank. As she did, the boat lurched and she tumbled backward. Gabriel caught her clumsily, dropping an oar to keep both of them from being tossed overboard.
Her young body covered his. He felt the thrust of her breasts through the wet silk of her gown. She looked at him, a dark emotion in her eyes, her hair gusting black and rich around her shoulders.
Gabriel felt himself falling, falling into an ocean without any bottom, his heart spread high and wide like the sails of the swift ships that had carried him so often to France.
He wished he were a hero then, the kind of man she thought that he was. But he was no hero. A hero would have turned her away, and he could not. There was too much sweetness in her face, too much yearning in her eyes. Her hair blew about his face and all Gabriel could think of was the sweet smell of lilacs that filled his mouth, his lungs, his whole being.
He knew then that he had to have her, that all his honor could not save her, because it had gone far beyond heated thighs and rasping breath.
Now it was a thing of rushing spirit, of deepest yearning dreams, the sort of hunger that could not be denied because it went past bone and muscle to the very soul.
“I’ll hurt you, damn it. I’ll take you, my love, again and again, until you forget where you start and I begin. Once there’s a starting, there won’t be an end, I warn you. Not today. Not tomorrow. Maybe not ever.”
He had hoped to scare her away, but he might have known he could not succeed. Her hands whispered over his arrogant mouth. “I pray so, my lord.”
“Fool.” There was anger in his voice along with an infinite tenderness. “You don’t know anything about me.”
“Except what counts. That you are a hero and…I love you.”
“I can give you nothing but pain, Geneva. Through my whole life, that’s all I’ve done to those I love most.”
Then her body blocked out the night, the river, the fog, and she kindled a joy he had thought long dead.
When she touched him, he was lost. Gabriel fought for sanity, for strength to deny her, but found neither. “Geneva, are you sure?” His voice was harsh as his fingers moved through her hair.
“Yes, now. There, in the mill beside this dark river.” And if the words had not been clear enough, then the soft pressure of her body was.
“It’s wrong. Wrong and I know it.” His fingers tightened, locked deep in her hair.
“Maybe, my lord,” she murmured, her hands achingly gentle on his face, “it’s your knowing that’s wrong.”
THE MILL WAS FULL OF DUST,but Gabriel mounded clean straw and made a bed in the moonlight. When Geneva turned, her eyes were full of love.
Her fichu, gown and stays slid free. Beneath she wore only a chemise of finest cambric, now damp from the river and nearly translucent.
Gabriel feasted on the sight of her, on the full, rich sweep of her soft shadows beneath the moon. His throat constricted. “So fine. So bloody beautiful…”
She smiled a little sadly. “I am too tall for fashion and my mouth is too wide. I have no graces and I squint.” She spoke with utter candor.
Gabriel would have laughed, could he have summoned up a single sound. He would have bellowed with laughter, for she was all that he’d ever hungered for—all that any man could ever hunger for.
“None of the graces?” he managed.
“Not a single one,” she said defiantly.
“And surely not a squint.”
“Just so.” She demonstrated.
He thought to himself that it made her look enchanting, lending a lovely intensity to her fine, regular features. But he did not tell her so. He could not speak with any safety.
“Now you’ll not want me.”
It was all beyond his taking in, standing in the moonlight and talking calmly, as if she wasn’t half-naked, straw at her feet.
“Besides, I smell.”
“Smell?”
“I carried a bottle of perfume in my gown. It was my mother’s. The bottle broke in the river.” She sniffed. “I’m certain you must have smelled it.”
Lilacs. Oh, yes, he’d smelled them. Like her they were fresh and full and everything young. They were spring come to the dark earth and joy to a hardened heart. They would help him remember this moment forever.
“Come closer and let me see.”
She moved through a bar of moonlight, all whisper and heat, her shoulder extended. “Will this do?” Her voice was husky.
Did it do any better, he would die of her!
Gabriel nodded gravely. Bending slightly, he inhaled while the tantalizing sweep of one breast, barely veiled beneath white cambric, lay inches from his fingers.
So close. So sweet.
He found lilacs and more—courage and honesty and fierce loyalty. Lilacs would mean that to him from now on, Gabriel thought. “I can smell it now.”
She nodded gravely. “You’ve wanted none of me, not from the start. And why should you? You’re far too grand. You can have your pick of fine, grand women without a squint and with every sort of grace.”
He swept her against him, his hands lost in her hair, his mouth raining hot kisses over her face.
Geneva gave a shaky laugh. “I am too tall.”
“Which means I can see your face when I do this.” He caught her lip gently between his teeth.
She swallowed, her hands at his shoulders. “But my mouth—”
“Is just perfect.”
He filled himself with her, and his fingers were not quite steady as he slid her chemise from her shoulders, following the fine fabric with his mouth, kisses like a storm.
She sighed as he slid the cambric away and found the impudent coral thrust of her breast.
Lilac filled his senses. Geneva filled him, heart and soul. He’d take away her pain, and with it all her doubts.
“But you are dressed and I am not. Besides, I want to touch you too. If…that is allowed.”
He laughed, could not help himself. “Most certainly it is allowed.”
She frowned for a moment. “I’ve lost your stickpin. I had it to remind me of the night I betrayed you. It must have fallen.”
He brushed her cheek. “I’ll put a curse on whoever finds it.”
“Do not jest, my lord.” She sank onto the snug little bed of mounded straw. “Come here.”
He did. Wondering.
She tugged away his cravat, shoved at his buttons, and freed his jacket, two buttons bursting in the process.
Gabriel knew a fierce urge to give her all her heart desired, to sweep down the very stars and give them to her on a platter of beaten gold.
But he had no gold nor stars. All he had was his touch and his joy in her.
“You—are beautiful,” she said, her voice low with wonder. “I’m far too ordinary for you.” Her fingers touched his muscled arms, brushed the fine hair across his chest.
“Geneva,” he said warningly, heat climbing.
She traced the silver trail of an old scar, earned on his first foray to France. “You’ve been hurt too often,” she said gravely. Her lips covered the skin, bringing a pleasure more fierce than any pain Gabriel had felt when the French cavalry saber had sliced through him.
Her tongue was magic, blinding as she
came slowly upward. And then she met his mouth. Inexpert. Eager. Maddeningly fine.
Too soon. He had her body yet to taste.
But she pulled him down against her, suddenly demanding, cambric fallen aside and only burnished skin before him.
“Now,” she whispered, her eyes grave. “Before I can remember, I pray you.” Her thigh moved along his. “Unless you have changed your mind?”
He caught her, pulled her down atop him in a sprawl. “Never,” he said grimly. He palmed her thigh and moved to higher glories. “Satin. Sweet.” And wet, he saw, with sharp delight. Not that she yet understood the significance of that.
“But you—”
“Hush.” Sliding to part her, pushing deeper. Ignoring her startled breath, he remained intent on his goal.
Which was her pleasure.
“Gabriel—”
No words. Nothing but the joy he could show her.
Nearly there, all clinging skin. All heat that welcomed.
“Gabriel.” This time her voice came in a rush of awareness. Her skin flushed warmest pink.
“Yes, my stubborn love?”
“I feel—so strange. And I don’t at all understand—”
“You will.”
He taught her then, his hard hands carefully gentle against petals lush. She flowered in the heat of his care and love and opened her glorious amber eyes, shock warring with a final instant of fear.
But he swept her beyond both, into a dark storm of feeling, in a place where all memories stopped and all wounds were healed. He felt her arch against him, a single word on her lips.
And the word was his name.
It coiled around his heart, held him speechless, made him feel a thousand times young.
And truly the man she loved.
There was no more fighting then, not for either of them.
WITH A SOFT MOAN CATHLIN turned, shoving blindly at her pillow.
River.
Night.
A man whose face was hard with regret.
She fought her soft pillow, seeing trails of white fog, feeling the heat of a lover’s hands and mouth and skin, understanding all her years of distance and regret and fear that came from a distant time when she had found love, only to have it stolen from her.
And in that moment of aching awareness, with one foot in dreams and the other in waking, she saw all the rare, remarkable things she had never had a chance to know as Cathlin O’Neill, but had never quite forgotten as Geneva Russell.
GABRIEL WAS SMILING WHENshe opened her eyes, her body poured over his in a moonlit glow of breast and thigh.
“You—knew? You have felt this?”
“Of course I knew.”
She touched his chest, wondering. “It is—quite extraordinary.”
“There is more.”
Her head cocked. “Truly? It seems beyond imagining.” A hesitation. “You could be persuaded to…show me?”
A dark smile. “Very likely. With the right inducement.”
Her fingers moved along his chest and then lower. His eyes closed when she found him, fire a drumming in his blood.
“Persuaded like this?”
“Maybe faster than you like.”
A soft laugh. Her hair a veil across his chest. Her kisses—heaven itself.
He caught her in her flight downward.
Her smile was a luscious invitation as she eased her legs around him, fitting herself to the awesome mark of his need.
He cursed. “Geneva—”
Deeper. Encasing him in satin. Taking him to a paradise beyond his dreams.
He tried to hold her, but she wriggled free. “There will be pain, so I have heard. Yet I think it will be well worth the sight of your face now, my lord,” she whispered huskily.
Gabriel frowned, trying to be sane for a few moments longer. “It is true, there will be pain. I only wish—”
She stilled his lips and moved against him, frowning when she could move no more.
Gabriel twisted, knowing it would be best finished in one swift stroke. He studied the glory of her beneath him, hair spread wild, eyes ablaze, a questioning smile on the beautiful mouth she assured him was far too wide for beauty. “As little as I can make it, my love.”
She nodded, grave. Indescribably beloved.
He moved, filled her, met the barrier and then thrust beyond. As he did, she swallowed, her eyes closed, her hands tensed. But even then she did not push him away or struggle against him, her body open to whatever he would offer her.
And that very openness was the greatest bravery Gabriel had ever known.
Bending, he claimed one nipple while his hands claimed a different bloom, sliding deeper and teasing her to maddening need.
She gasped and shoved hard against him.
He met her instantly, sliding deeper through honeyed skin where now no barrier stood. Only heat leaped up to meet him. Only blazing desire.
“Wrap your legs around me,” he ordered hoarsely.
“Like this?”
“Good, sweet God!”
“No?” Immediately she tried to pull away.
“Yes. A thousand times yes, my beauty.”
He showed her how right it was, how much he loved her, sliding deep and finding the still, hot core of her. Finding at the same time the still, hot core of himself.
There love lay coiled, a love he’d never thought to find.
She cried out, her back drawn tight like a bow, her nails to his chest. He smiled, with his last shred of sanity enjoying her soft, choked cry of delight, the hot sweet tremors that proclaimed her cresting pleasure.
Then Gabriel followed, cast up in the wave of night, swallowed and then made whole just as she had been reshaped in the hot, still crucible of love.
And as he fell, Gabriel swore he would never let her go again.
SLEEPY MINUTES PASSED INmoonlight and drifting shadow.
“You sleep, my dearest, like an army on the march.”
A soft murmured sigh. “And what would you know of armies on the march, my lord?”
“Too bloody much.”
“You’ve left me exhausted.” A frown. “Is that quite usual?”
“Only for those who are very lucky.” He gently combed a curl back from her forehead. “But I’m not offering a complaint, you understand, since all your marching was done over me.”
A flush. An enchanting dimple. “I am quite beyond redeeming, I fear.”
“I have no thought of redeeming you.”
His hand found her breast. Instantly she was afire again, needy for this wondrous thing he’d made her feel.
There was a moment of sadness in her eyes, and something like regret. Then she smiled and inched closer. Her thigh rose, coaxing till it found a most enchanting hardness. “Perhaps I am not so exhausted as I thought.”
Gabriel slid the length of her. “Are you quite certain?”
“Without a doubt.”
“In that case…” He drove against her, filling her in one hard, perfect thrust, delight swirling through every muscle as she crested against him anew. “How very, very glad I am to hear it,” he managed, just before he followed her down into a swirling ring of pleasure.
Lulled by the soft rush of the river and the muffling veil of the fog, they finally fell back against the straw. Outside the mill an owl cried over the river and little animals curled warm and safe in their dens.
Somewhere, far in the distance, a church bell chimed.
Twelve times and then no more.
Hands entwined, breaths soft, Gabriel and Geneva finally slept.
HENRY DEVERE SAT UNMOVINGin the darkness, listening to a church bell chime.
He liked the darkness. He could think in the darkness, plan in the darkness.
And he planned now, careful and thorough, while he nursed the wounds delivered at Geneva’s hand. For that she would pay dearly, as would her arrogant lover. The Rook was almost within his grasp, along with the thousand-guinea reward the French had posted for the Eng
lishman’s capture.
His eyes glinted, hollow and cold.
He would have the Rook. Then he would begin teaching Geneva Russell how very stupid she had been to think she could escape him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
“THERE WERE THREE CALLS from France, two equipment deliveries, and two calls from London, my lord. In addition Lord Draycott has already called twice.”
A notepad in hand, Marston stood in a beam of early morning sunlight beside the desk Dominic had commandeered in Nicholas’s study. “Oh, yes, the vicar also called. He wished to offer his felicitations to you and the countess. He said that if any difficulties should arise, you must feel free to call him.”
Dominic laughed. “Can he secure a frayed electric wire, do you think?”
“I could not say, my lord. However, I have always believed that with the help of the Almighty, all things are possible.” With that enigmatic utterance, the butler laid a pile of parcels on the desk and turned to leave.
“And…the countess?” Dominic swallowed. The word brought back too many heated memories to face easily in the daylight. Things were still too uncertain between them. At least she had slept deeply. He had seen to that before he left her at the first light of dawn.
And his body still pained him for that celibate departure.
“I believe she has not come down yet, my lord. Shall I give her a message?”
“No need, Marston. I’ll be cooped up rewiring this bloody security system for several hours and then I have to inspect that backup generator. It’s already acting up.” He frowned. “If I didn’t know better, I’d almost think there was a ghost here playing havoc.”
Marston cleared his throat, then moved off, astounding in black broadcloth and neon purple running shoes.
After he left, Dominic sat staring at the files Harcliffe had left him the day before, thinking about the stresses Cathlin must be feeling and wondering if these waking dreams of hers were a sign that she was skating near the edge of her endurance.
The phone cut short his reveries.
It was Nicholas, his voice grim. “I’m sorry to add any more pressure, Dominic, but I’ve had bad news. Already the heads of three European countries have expressed profound interest in at least one of the bottles of your wine—as a ‘token of British goodwill.’ In addition, two American senators have made discreet contact through the American embassy in London, each claiming a bottle to present to the president. Jefferson happens to be one of the man’s heroes, it seems.”
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